Felt

Just a little love post from me to you. Hope you have a wonderful wonderful day today! We’re not one to celebrate Valentine’s day by going out for a romantic dinner etc but if there’s a special day to celebrate love, kindness, giving, and anything nice, we’re there!

I cannot wait for the girls to come home. Again, we’re not having anything super special but a little extra love, yummy cupcakes from my favorite cake lady, cards and decors will make their end of the week (and start of their school break) extra lovely.

Take care and I shall share how I created the 10, maybe 15, minutes bunting with you next post! Thanks to all the gorgeousness from WPlus9, all the above were able to be created. Do check out WPlus9’s blog for all sorts of fun challenges and giveaways to celebrate their birthday. Lots of inspirations and tips this week alone!!

Hi again!!! I can’t believe it’s almost the end of November! Thanksgiving is just around the corner and then our favorite holiday: Christmas!!

Since Thanksgiving is not celebrated in England, Christmas preparations have already started here. Many many markets, fairs, etc have been held since the first weekend of November and I’ve been doing a bit of crafting myself. I have this crazy intention to make lots of new decor for the home these next few weeks!

So here’s holiday decor exhibit one: A wool and felt wreath. My blog friend Cathy Pascual is a FABULOUS wreath crafter and I followed her felt flower tutorial to create the flowers. Aren’t they pretty? The making of the wreath isn’t hard but a bit time consuming (or maybe I’m just not good at it — a possibility *WINK*). I am though very pleased with how it turned out and I may create a few more for gifts.

For this one, since it’s my first, I used inexpensive materials. Now that I know better and I want better materials, I shall order some wool felt and also good wool. BUT, this is just me. As you can see, the inexpensive materials came out pretty nice!!

Below are a few close-ups and if you like, you can go on YouTube and there are many tutorials on how to create this. OR, if you don’t want to be bothered, pop over Cathy’s Etsy shop and she’s got many many gorgeous ones for you to choose from!

Today the moving folks came to take part of our stuff. Even though it hasn’t really hit us, our (slow) big move to England is finally starting. We can’t wait and in my head I’m imagining all the places we’ll see and the food we’ll eat. You all know I LOVE to eat. You should have been there for our first date. I ate everything on my plate! My then not-even-boyfriend was in awe. It’s amazing that he called me up again the next day he he…

Today I took lots of naps and by late afternoon I was feeling better (thanks everybody for your well wishes). After my nap I started looking at felt gadget cases on Etsy. M’s big present this year is a camera. We decided on the Canon 1200 because it’s small, has a viewfinder, and has a lithium rechargeable battery. If it wasn’t for the viewfinder I’d have gone with a Panasonic (it has a Leica lens, wider angle, and did I say Leica glass?) but the viewfinder won. M likes taking pictures with my Canon dSLR but it’s just way too big and bulky for her to lug around. A lot of point-and-shoot doesn’t have a viewfinder and we want her to get use to looking at that little piece when taking pictures. Anyhow… I wanted a cute case for M’s new gadget and was actually ready to purchase this one from Suezybees:

when hubby said, “You can make one, you have all the stuff. You can die cut a cute bird or flower or something.” Hmmm, he’s got a point. So I gathered my butt load of felt and thread, needle, scissors, ruler, the crochet flowers Clouds made me, some PTI Christmas vintage buttons, and went to work. Two hours later (a pro can probably do this in 30 minutes) I got this:

Ignore the crookedness, ignore the bad corners, and just look at the big picture. You think she’ll like it? I hope so! Inside is an acrylic block which coincidentally is the size of the camera. For the flap, the flower was sewn on top of the button hole. This part was the hardest to do. It wasn’t hard, just nerve wreaking because it was the last thing and if I cut wrong then I’d have to rake my brain again to cover up my mistake or start over again.

I have to thank the hubby for pushing me to do this. I love felting but since I’m not so good at it I rarely do it. For this project hubby did more than motivate. He suggested hole + flowers + button flap instead of snaps and a button on top and that the button should be placed a bit to the side instead of centered. The best part of this project was that I made this while chit-chatting with him in the living room. We would have liked it better if we weren’t sick but we did make the best of it.

Instructions:

First the camera is 3.5×0.9×2.25. If your gadget is bigger/smaller, adjust accordingly.

For the tan felt: 4.5×3.5 which gave me .25″ on each side I’ll be stitching and an inch of space for the thickness of the camera. If you want it to be less snug, you can cut your felt to 4.5×3.75 or 4.5x4bag. The key is to remember your sewing space and the thickness of your gadget/case.

For the brown felt: 6.5×3.5

I think I should have done rounded corners. As you can see from my creation I’m not so smooth on them corners. Actually I’m not sure how to do corners. I’m a self taught stitcher. Any hints?

After all’s cut I sewed the buttons on to the flowers AND the tan felt. The button holes were right above the crochet flower holes and so it worked well for me. If you have crochet flowers with bigger holes I’d probably sew the flower to the felt first and then the button to the felt after.

Then comes the stitching. Now, since I’m no stitch expert I tried to use as long of a thread as I possibly could (I used two strands of thread tied together at the end making it into a four strand). Starting out is always tough for me for some reason so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

It’s not showing on the picture but the tan felt was stitched all around.

After the stitching comes the flap button, hole and flower. To do this close the flap. Place the flower on the flap to help visualize and after you’re happy with where it’ll be stick your needle to the center. Leave the needle there and place the button under it. Eye ball again, and again, and again. Sew this button on the to tan felt. Close the flap and place the flower on the brown felt on top of the button. Feel it again, and again, and again and cut. Cut as big as the button and stitch around it. Now, I’m not sure if you have to do this but I did it thinking it’ll make it last longer. I dunno tho for sure.

Last but not least with the white/light color thread sew the flower on. On my flap there’s no indication that the flower was sewn on. I did it very carefully.

Before I start, come back tomorrow for some an awesome chance to win a freebie and what you have to do to win it. It’ll be fun fun fun!

Here’s a little card using some hybrid paper (the birdies) from TheDigiChick, stamps by Chatterbox, SU cardstock, KI paper paper and PTI ribbon. I double stamped (so easy with acrylic) the birds to give it a more variance.

Just a little card that can be used for Valentine’s day, a wedding, or anybody you love really.

How’s your weekend? We had a decently nice one. Saturday M had a little playdate and then we went and met up with a couple of hubby’s coworkers and their partners for sushi at our favorite place. I usually get the same stuff, dynamite roll (an assortment of raw fish) and spicy tuna but lately I’ve been replacing the tuna with something else due to the overfishing of tuna and something that’s not raw. It’s my preggo routine, cutting back to half. Afterwards we went to Borders for some coffee (I saved up all allowed caffeine intake for Sat. night too) and reading. Hubby got a Dilbert’s book on sale, $5, steal {::SMILES}. Today we’re just chilling out. We made a couple clothespin dolls and watched some Tom and Jerry on YouTube. The dolls were really easy to make, I did some stitching but fabric glue would have been enough. The fabric were mostly felt but we’re going to do more with some fun fabric next time and yarn hair. The best part of the project: We both had a blast and she thinks I’m the bestest mommy in the world {::SMILES}.

Tonight we’ll be doing Sunday Supper (local food kitchen) again, I’ll be making my homemade salsa. It’s Taco night! Oh, if you want to try the salsa recipe (not bragging but everybody really likes this recipe) – just keep in mind when I cook I don’t measure. These are estimates and for myself I use the max of the below numbers (aka three jalapenos and three cloves of garlic).

1 medium size onion or half a large one (if you don’t like onions, use a half but without onions… dunno, just not salsa, ha!)

4 Roma tomatoes (although my favorite is the on the vine tomatoes… just a bit more expensive)

Cilantro (I usually use 1/4 -1/2 of the bunch)

Jalapenos (I love it spicy so I put 3 but start at half a jalapeno if you’re not into hot stuff)

1-3 cloves of garlic, depends on how you like garlic

1 tbs lime juice

1/4 tsp salt and pepper (or more salt if you like it saltier)

Cut the onion in half and dump the pieces into the food processor, give it a good pulse. Then dump the rest of the ingredients in. I like my salsa kind of chunky but that’s your preference. For hubby’s work I blend it more so that it looks more like the restaurant type — smooth.

I wish I can claim these ideas as mine but they’re not. These are just two of the many things that M did at the St. Nick’s workshop Saturday.

The first is a snack. Yes, they had to work on their snack before eating it. It’s a reindeer and it’s made out of a chocolate body, (2) caramel face and head, an M&M nose, pretzel antlers and tail, and (2) marshmallow peanut looking candies. Everything is “glued” together with icing and the legs are (4) toothpicks. Oh, there is also a half a toothpick (I know because I helped prepped) between the head and face. Super super cute and the kids had a lot of fun making and eating this.

The second is this cute snowman. It’s made out of recycled small/big (you can choose) creamer container. The hat and scarf is just felt (the hat was presewn). The hat has a little ribbon on the top — can’t see it too well. The kids just tied it on the spot. Love this little guy!!

Since the event was at church each project has a little verse on it. I can’t remember what this one had… I can’t look either since it’s been wrapped. I think this is a present from M to one of her little friends. I hope she likes it!

Last, there’s little M, having a great time making the projects with her helper. She was soooo tired after (crafting from 1 to 3:50 p.m.) and had a big headache after (at least that’s what she said). So yesterday evening we just lounged around and watched Prince Caspian, the second Narnia series. It was pretty good. I really liked it. I love the books and having not read it since I was 8-ish, I really can’t compare the book with the movie. It was entertaining and we all had a great time together.

Hope your weekend was great! I need to get back to wrapping presents and sending out Christmas cards to at least the family and very close friends… those are my goals at least. Have a great one!!